During the 2019 tax season, CPL partnered with the California Department of Social Services to send texts to CalFresh enrollees in 5 counties who were potentially eligible to receive the EITC. Approximately 35,000 text messages were sent to notify households of the credit, a link to calculate their benefit, and a prompt to call their county 211 to schedule an appointment with a free tax preparation clinic.
Households were either assigned to receive a simple message, a message that contained last year’s average benefit amount, or a personalized benefit calculated using quarterly earnings data from 2018.